Entrepreneurship is the freedom to choose the hunting ground to support the building of a family – definition by “The Engineer”.
Since the start of the British Industrial Revolution in the mid 17th century, entrepreneurship is dying at the advancing rate – especially, the creativity in entrepreneurship at the lower end of the economic spectrum.
The decline is concentrated mainly in highly developed countries.
If anyone of you ever have an opportunity to travel to any countries around the world where the standard of living is between $3.00 to $10.00 per day, you will witness an astonish level of creativity in entrepreneurship.
There is so many creative means of making a living.
Many of these countries were once colonists to one of the dominated super powers.
Many relics, cars, electrical grids, sewer systems, architectural buildings are all remained and in working condition because of the ingenuity out born from the result of just being poor.
The creativity does not stop there!
The hustling and bustling spilled over to foods, entertainments on displayed every day hours and every days of the week.
In many of these countries, the size of the economy is not large enough to meet the available raw labors. As result, many are strike out on their own in search for resources for their families.
Their everyday livings are more similar to our ancestors who hunted and gathered independently from any organized structures of economics.
Actually, the modern day hunters and gatherers in these undeveloped countries are much more cerebral than their ancestors because the resources are limited due to wealth inequalities in these countries.
I met a young man in his 30’s who is living with a wife and two young teens. His responsibility for family daily dinner is a bucket of fish the size of my thumb caught with his home made casting net.
His joy and happiness was displayed every time he felt the small tug in the net when the school of fishes are caught in the cast – and it happened frequently and regularly throughout the three hours I spent the time with him.
I was told that if he caught more fishes than his family can consume for the day, the access will be sold in a local market.
In countries where the standard of living falls in the $3 to $10 range, most homes are small business owners. Their products or services are being trade, sell and barter every day in some organized local markets.
Each home will showcase their own versions of the goods and services and compete for the standardized currency of the country – the greater in creativity and the forefront of innovation are rewarded for the greater share of the pie instantly within the day.
Because of the day to day competitiveness for survival, the creativity and innovation are constantly evolved.
Every day these small business owners are on vigilance of their competitions and mindfully dig deep for additional improvement of their goods and services.
These small business creativity and innovations are occurring at the grass roots level. Overtime, many goods and services started out in these local markets made it to the national level and became the brand that brings utility to millions in the their respective countries.
Compare the ingenuity from of the small business owners from the underdeveloped countries to the labor force in highly developed countries like United States and Japan – the differences in creativity is obscenely lopsided.
Of my 20 years working in the corporate IT, I have never witnessed an innovation or creativity that is organically took root from a team of 100 plus in house engineers and outside consultants – all implementations were canned frameworks tailored custom to our corporate needs.
Since the British Industrial Revolution in the mid 17th century, slowly and surely, innovation and creativity became the top down through the mass organization of the labor work force.
The modern economic models are more interested in mass production from the labor work force and narrowly invested in the small group of resource with the right credentials and educations.
My years in the traditional labor work force, I have yet met a single professional who was so passionate of his/her work that it rubbed and contagious to me – the same truth of the environment with the collective of the professionals.
More often, the job and responsibility became mundane and routine within 5 to 10 years time frame. For additional growth and responsibility, office politics are more critical for the moving up the elevated positions as oppose to creativity or innovation.
The typical career development for the majority of the labor work force seemed to taper off within 10 to 15 years on the job. Many will coast along in their mid 30’s to early 40’s – that is an additional 20 and plus years of doing something without any passion and growth.
In the last few years there are active discussions of the “useless class” in the Artificial Intelligence area.
This is not a new side effect resulted from the advancement of technologies – it started with the first massive restructuring of the manufacturing sector in Europe.
Ironically, people are living better and longer – yet, slowly and surely the population is heading toward consumerism instead of utilizing the new found wealth and time to explore their inner creativity and innovation.
The “useless class” is present here all along – Artificial Intelligence is just the last straw that broke the camel back.
The FIRE movement within the last 10 years is the grass root revolution toward the outdated economic model that began the birth of the “useless class”.
The lack of success in the FIRE revolution is its embedded “Retire” in the definition.
Traditionally, retirement meant getting away from a job or a responsibility where the benefits in passion and financial reward are lacked behind the taxation on the physical and mental health.
Why would anyone put in so much effort to achieve Financial Independence and ended up with Retirement?
Financial Independence must be a goal that leads to creativity in entrepreneurship.
If there is any new money to be made, its value is nothing more than a metric that measure the utility of your passion – and nothing more.
Beyond the FI mile marker is the opportunity for you to invest your time and effort in an endeavor that is worthy of your existence.
Let’s play the game of life!
